The main problem I've long had with private financing of elections, especially now in the wake of Citizens United and its furthering of untraceable millions in donations from a handful of 1%ers, is not just the elections themselves anymore.

We're getting shitty policy from our lawmakers now more than ever because our policymakers spend more time having to raise money than they do learning anything on the issues themselves, or even reading the things they vote on.

Learning About Policy Not on Radar for New Members of Congress
By Kevin Drum
Wed Jan. 9, 2013 8:08 AM PST

Ryan Grim and Sabrina Siddiqui of the Huffington Post got hold of a PowerPoint presentation for incoming members of Congress. It comes from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and lays out, as the authors says, "the dreary existence awaiting these new back-benchers." In particular note that they expect five hours out of every day to be devoted to fundraising (call time + strategic outreach).

That's no surprise, really. What's also no surprise, I suppose, is the number of hours they expect new members to engage in studying up on the issues. That number would be zero. I guess that's what staffers are for. No need to fill their beautiful minds with tedious policy stuff when there's money to be raised, after all.

This is why I don't understand the bipartisan opposition to publicly funded elections. I mean, every member of Congress hates this stuff:

Quote:

It's miserable business. "What’s my experience with it? You might as well be putting bamboo shoots under my fingernails," said Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), a high-ranking Democrat.

....On Capitol Hill, call time evokes a rare bipartisan accord. "An hour and a half is about as much as I can tolerate. There's no way to make it enjoyable," Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wis.) told HuffPost....Former Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.), now a top official at the Center for American Progress, said that the four hours allocated to fundraising may even be "low-balling the figure so as not to scare the new Members too much."

Right. So for purely selfish reasons, why not relieve themselves of this nasty business and agree to 100% publicly funded elections? Are they masochists?

I will never understand the leftist desire to institutionalize everything. Why in the world should anybody want our political system to become a system of mass conformity to a much greater degree than it already is?

__________________
Ehyeh asher ehyeh.

"You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream – the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order – or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism." -Ronald Reagan

I will never understand the leftist desire to institutionalize everything. Why in the world should anybody want our political system to become a system of mass conformity to a much greater degree than it already is?

It's not evident that mass conforming is the result of public financing. In what countries that exercise public financing has that been the case?

If you want to avoid mass conforming, avoiding putting election funding in the hands of the 1% is how you do it.